Signs of fall are beginning to appear in the northeastern United States. Glimpses of colorful leaves are showing and a crisp autumn smell hangs in the air. Maple trees make up much of New England’s landscape and are integral to both thriving tourist and maple syrup industries. Now, a new study just out in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research suggests that if left uncontrolled, the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) can “readily...

This post contributed by Jesse A. Logan, retired research entomologist living in Emigrant, Montana. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is an ecological reserve of regional, national and international significance. This collection of National Parks, National Forests, wildlife reserves and tribal lands is generally recognized as one of the last remaining large, nearly intact, ecosystems of the Earth’s northern temperate...

(Click the below image to view the photo gallery.) This week, the American Museum of Natural History launched the exhibit “Picturing Science: Museum Scientists and Imaging Technologies” which explores the images produced by scientists while performing research. The images range from bug genitalia to staghorn coral (see video at the end of this post). As quoted in a recent Wired Science article, “‘A lot of people come to the museum...

Researcher David Hughes has expanded research on a parasitic fungus and its carpenter ant host. As explained in an excerpt from a previous EcoTone post: Scientists have found that the parasitic fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis has possibly been invading carpenter ants (Camponotus) for 48 million years. The parasite not only infects the ant, but it manipulates the ant’s behavior, driving it to bite the underside of the leaf at the...

Truffle shuffle: According to a letter published in the April issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Buffo the truffle-hunting dog made an unusual find: a one-pound Burgundy truffle in the forests of southern Germany in November. As lead author Ulf Büntgen said in a recent Wired Science article, “This wasn’t a small find, but a big and expensive truffle with lots of smaller ones around. It was strange to find it in an area...

“Parc National La Visite is one of the few remaining refuges for Haiti’s once-remarkable biodiversity. It is also the only refuge for over 1,000 desperately poor families, the poorest people I have encountered anywhere on this planet. Naked children with bloated stomachs stood next to pine-bark lean-tos and waved shyly to me as I walked through the forest. Their parents eke out the meanest existence from small gardens and, if...

Fish are probably not the first animals that leap to mind when thinking of seed dispersers. Squirrels are well-known examples, but researchers have recently tracked a species of frugivorous—that is, fruit-eating—piranha in the Amazon that distribute seeds over more than five kilometers of flood plains. As Daniel Cressey described in a Nature News article, “Although fish have long been suspected of having an important role in seed...

Stretching approximately 2,181 miles (3,510 km), and reaching elevations higher than 6,000 feet, the Appalachian Scenic National Trail is a wilderness hiking trail that begins in Georgia, spans fourteen total states, and ends in Maine. An extension—the International Appalachian Trail—continues through Canada until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. It is managed by the United States National Park Service and the Appalachian Trail...